We were supposed to go to New Mexico the first week of May. Dean had a talk at the University of New Mexico and we were going to make a week of it — exploring Albuquerque, then heading to Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge before visiting my childhood friend, Stephanie in Silver City (where Dan Bern also lives).

Well, New Mexico didn’t happen because they decided to make Dean’s talk virtual and he had reasons to stay in the DC area for that week. He still wanted to get away and we settled on going to Cape May, New Jersey instead. I booked a house at Cape May Point — away from the hustle and bustle of the actual town of Cape May and walking distance to the bird observatory.

We arrived at the cabin we rented Saturday evening, followed soon after by Andrew and Alex. We dined at a vegan/local seafood restaurant that night and I’d planned on having someone (not me) cook breakfast (I had the ingredients all ready to go). When I realized that the directions were missing (turns out they were not missing) I thought I’d cook breakfast anyway. Dean took off to check out the beach and I started prepping — the first thing was to zest the lemon. Unfortunately there was no zester in the house so I peeled the lemon and was in the process of mincing the peel (with a very sharp knife I’d brought from home) when I sliced through the first section of my pinky on my left hand. I swore loudly and Andrew, who’d just gotten up, rushed to me and asked, “Cut or burn?” I said, “Cut — and it’s bad” while I grabbed for a paper towel to catch the blood. Alex must have heard the commotion and came out to see what was going on. She calmly wrapped my finger in gauze that Andrew found in the bathroom and agreed with me that I’d need stitches. We had to wait until 8:30 to go to the local urgent care facility.

By the time we left for the urgent care facility, Dean had gotten back from his walk, but Andrew had already written a note.

At the urgent care place a nurse practitioner who resembled Tony Soprano more than Nurse Jackie sewed me up. I don’t think he did that good of a job, but what do I know?

We had a much better breakfast of delicious bagels than we would have if we’d cooked the pancakes I’d planed. After breakfast we did some shopping, then bid Andrew and Alex farewell back at the cabin.

Dean was really tired and took a nap before making dinner. He was also stuffed up and complained of a sore throat. Later that evening Alex called to say that she’d been exposed to Covid at school but tested negative that night.

The next day Andrew informed us that Alex tested positive for Covid. Dean slept longer than he’d slept in years so used one of the antigen tests I brought from home — it was negative. I thought I would wait until Thursday morning to test again.

On Tuesday Clare called to tell us she might not be able to move into the new rental she and Pete were scheduled to move to on May 28 because it was still a shambles. (Luckily this was all resolved on Saturday when the landlord actually saw the place). It was worrying that she might be temporally houseless.

So with the possibility of developing Covid and Clare’s news, we were understandably a little anxious. I was grumpy, fulling expecting that I would either get whatever Dean had or Covid or both! We both tested negative for Covid on Thursday morning. I still need to test again to be sure, but I have no symptoms — nor any symptoms of Dean’s nasty cold.

Maybe it was good that the weather was lousy — it made sticking around in the cabin less painful.

That said, we did to a few things…